Tiahrt addresses variety of issues on stop

Wednesday

Mar 26, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 26, 2008 at 6:02 AM

On his second week of congressional recess, Rep. Todd Tiahrt made stops in El Dorado, Augusta and Haysville on Monday, looking to constituents to get a feel for the issues that matter most to the citizens he represents.

Jon Pic

On his second week of congressional recess, Rep. Todd Tiahrt made stops in El Dorado, Augusta and Haysville on Monday, looking to constituents to get a feel for the issues that matter most to the citizens he represents.

“Let me just tell you a little bit about what’s going on in Washington,” Tiahrt said, as he outlined some of the high points of the 110th Congress.

Tiahrt told the 40 or so people gathered in Double D’s about the $2.9 trillion U.S. budget being outlined for fiscal year 2009.

“To give you an idea how much a trillion dollars is, if you were to start a business the day after Christ rose from the dead and made a million dollars that day and every day until today,” he said, “you still would not have made a trillion dollars. We spend an awful lot of money in the federal government.”

About two-thirds of the money, he said, goes toward social security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest on the national debt. One-third of the budget falls under discretionary spending guidelines, money that goes toward defense, transportation, education, environment and “all those other things the federal government does.”

Congress, he said, focuses on tweaking the discretionary spending, as the other two-thirds of the budget is mandated. After the budget is approved, it’s scrutinized by about 24 authorization committees.

“Those committees try to decide some priorities within that spending,” he said.
Tiahrt sits on the appropriations committee, which “in a sense writes the checks” for discretionary spending. He also sits on the defense and interior sub-committees.

“I spend most of my time either as the ranking member of the interior sub-committee or in defense ranks,” Tiahrt said. “I’m also on the intelligence committee and that’s had a lot of activity since the global war on terror started on September 11.”

He then turned his ear to the crowd, looking for feedback on local issues. Many spoke out on the issue of illegal immigration, but some had other issues they wanted to discuss.

Charles Jimenez, a member of the Butler County group of American Bikers Aimed Towards Education (ABATE), asked that Tiahrt look at HB-2195, a right-of-way violations bill.

“We’re having a lot of [riders] being killed and nothing’s really being done about it,” Jimenez said.

“I’ll look into it,” Tiahrt said.

An employee of the Resource Center for Independent Living in El Dorado who advocates for American Disabled for American Public Transit (ADAPT) asked if Tiahrt planned to sign the Community Choice Act, which would “establish a national program of community-based attendant services and supports for people with disabilities, regardless of age or disability.”

“This may be a very good piece of legislation, I’m anxious to find out about it and I thank you for bringing it up,” Tiahrt said. “There’s about 8,000 variations of legislation every two years. I can’t keep them all straight in my mind. It takes people like you to make sure stuff like this gets my attention.”

USD 490 Superintendent Sue Givens asked Tiahrt to talk a little about common conversation or any consensus being reached about No Child Left Behind reauthorization or possible changes coming up.

“There’s one group that wants to just dismiss it altogether,” Tiahrt said. “There is another group that says ‘We can see there is some progress, but it needs changes.’
“I didn’t vote for No Child Left Behind the first time because I saw the purpose was to make sure no state was ignoring their kids.”

Tiahrt said he felt the legislation would be duplicative of efforts already in place in Kansas. He said his sister-in-law Kay Walker, principal of Rose Hill Middle School, was encouraged by the results of the bill.

“The drawback is you have all these multi-points that you can fail on, so your whole school system can fail if one sub-category can’t pass the reading,” Tiahrt said. “It needs to be a little more flexible, probably in areas of special education, where you could allow more kids to opt-out. It would be more reflective of the school system. Those kids with special needs have their own individual education plan to start with, they could measure progress there.”

“I can just tell you, you’re right where we want you to be,” Givens said. “That is exactly what our concerns are with the sub-groups.”

One gentleman stood up to express his discontent with today’s Congress.

“Very few, if any, in Congress or Senate know what the Constitution says or care,” he said.

Tiahrt said he and Arizona Rep. John Shadegg co-sponsored a bill in 1995 that would have required every piece of legislation to reference the Constitution. The bill made it to a vote, but was shut down.

“One of your staff members, I asked him if he even knew where in the Constitution it’s outlined the powers of Congress,” he said. “He did not know.”

“I wonder sometimes – we have all this modern technology, but sometimes we pass over the fundamentals,” Tiahrt said. “You make a good point.”

Tiahrt also discussed his blog dedicated to expressing his “outrage” over the Feb. 29 Air Force announcement to award the KC-X Next Generation Air-fueling Tanker contract “to a foreign competitor in the name of the Northrop Grumman/European Aeronautic Defence and Space Team – representing a $35 billion award.”

Bill Rinkenbaugh, Butler Community College vice president for student affairs, queried about progress in student loan consolidation. Tiahrt said no changes are likely to happen this year but the issue is on the table.

“I think some employers are going to have to step up and help,” he said.

Tiahrt also addressed a question about increased diesel costs and the overall effect on economy.

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